30 JUN 11 -- Bench Press

Trained the bench press this afternoon. Last night was the end of my week of night shifts...whew! I've been on night shift for two weeks now, and I think my body will need a return to day shift to recover. I recall reading somewhere that people who regularly work night shifts can lose up to ten years on their life's span. I hope that's not going to be the case for me. I would like to get in as many years as I can.

The training max for bench press is 335 lbs (my actual max single is at least 30 lbs higher than this, but I continue to work with the training max number, as Wendler recommends, since the extra volume of reps will never hurt). Again, 40. 50, and 60% for warm up sets:

45 (bar) x 25
135 x 5
170 x 5
205 (should have been 200) x 5

Working sets:

220 x 5
250 x 5
285 x 12 (actually 11, but the last one was an assisted rep with my spotter = 11.5 reps)

Now, I was only required to do 5, and probably should have stuck with the requisite number, as recommended, but I wanted to test where I was at with this weight, which I have hit at different times over previous waves. Previous bests with this weight topped out at 11 reps, so although I had to get an assist on the last one to get 12, I consider the two weeks of night shift and not enough sleep to be a factor. I know where I am at, and can still see progress.

Assistance work consisted of incline dumbbell presses. 75 lbs dumbbells for 10, 10, 10, 9, and then 11. I took a bit longer rest before I hit the final set to make sure that I could squeeze off an extra rep for an even 50 reps.

Then I cracked off some bodyweight chin ups: 12, 8, 7, 5, 5, 5, 5 and 3 extra ones for an even 50 reps. I noticed that I felt stronger on these chin ups and they went up nice and smooth.  As stated in an earlier entry, I want to shoot for 100 chin ups per week, so this week's tally is 103. If I wasn't into lifting weights, I'd still be training with chin ups, dips and push ups. They're all perfect exercises for the upper body and arms, as well as the core, and certainly much easier on the joints than weight lifting. I don't see many people doing chins at the gyms I've been to, and yet, they seem like an athletic movement, very gymnastic, that would be of great benefit to the trainee, including the jump to reach the chin up bar.

I could have done some dips, rows or curls today, but I just wasn't feeling up to it. Wendler says to throw in 5 x10 curls at some point during the week, so I might do some tomorrow on squat day, or maybe even on Saturday. Hell, I might even go down to the home gym in my basement tonight, throw some weight on the bar and start curling, even if just for shits and giggles, lol.